It's desperation, not inclination, that drives most women to become prostitutes. A rough bit of the city. Run down. When I walked into town in the evening, through the derelict council houses slated for demolition, cars would sometimes slow as they passed me β the drivers, always male, checking whether I was willing to be picked up. I found it unnerving in a way that was difficult to explain, or difficult to explain without contradicting myself.
But in my neighbourhood, I was treated like a whore, and it scared me. I would internally chastise myself: who was I to dwell upon my fears, when there were women for whom these men were a living? The obvious answer here β that I was a woman who just wanted to be able to walk near my home without intimidation β did not occur to me. I think they troubled me also because men who buy sex are the most difficult element to reconcile with a pro-sex work position.
Where does her inability to refuse fit? Because I thought a lot about this. About what made me unlike the women those men were looking for. When I teach again next semester, the possibility will be even greater.
By Mary Harrington. Either way, the alarming figure of the man in the car can be kept at a certain distance. But all of them will be doing it for the money. The reason I would never have jumped in a car with a stranger and accepted a fiver for a handjob is that nothing in my life had conspired to force me to. My parents were able to top me up when needed.
Between dead high streets and a devastated hospitality sector, the sorts of jobs students usually do are harder to come by now. In fact, Covid means that the sorts of jobs everyone does are going to be harder to come by, which means that already more women are reportedly selling sex. Policy creates prostitutes: remove the welfare safety net, stop funding the refuges that help women get away from abusive men, and more women will either resort to selling sex or be unable to escape it.
